Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker

Half the audience was at the bandstand's edge, listening and snapping their fingers; the other half took to the dance floor, becoming what Dizzy Gillespie called "the mirror of the music. There were so many different variations going on out there that the musicians were prodded into new ideas as they looked at those Negro bodies improvising on the music in time. With their confidence all the way up, the McShann Orchestra had the corner on that dialogue. They were changing their title from western dogs to western demons.

The reed section got to where it was that way, too. A cat would know what particular part of the chord to build his notes from. Got to be so good at it you couldn't tell what was written and what wasn't. So McShann could send Walter Brown out there with Piggy Minor growling behind him; then Bird would step up a chorus later, slipping arabesques of musical freshness into the gutbucket.

Hibbler's sepia ballads would push the men and women together. Then Charlie would rise again, from the romantic cushion of brass and reeds, to manufacture gooseflesh with an improvised melody, a veil of transparent lyricism, in bursts as brief as eight bars that made the dancers hold each other even closer and caused his fellow musicians to share their heads. And so the McShann band proved it could swing, Kansas City style, lolling into power, trailing behind the beat a little bit, gradually lifting the gear a notch, just a little more, until all within hearing distance knew it was on.

Building, is you ready? On Sunday, at 4: The producers allowed in thirty or forty people to give the musicians an audience, to make it more than a brief rehearsal. When they got the signal, McShann's band kicked off a blues. They loped through the blues, then went into a medium-tempo song that swung nicely. They intended to take it out with "Cherokee," Charlie's feature. Well, that was Charlie Parker. Everyone was disappointed in a familiar way, the way that those who must do business with drug addicts become accustomed to — starting with suspense, as all wonder if this will be another one of those times, then leading eventually to an exaggerated apology or one hell of a story about what made it impossible for him to get there.

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It makes sense that Crouch would tackle Parker. Crouch is known as something of a traditionalist — he's a co-founder of the generally conservative Jazz at Lincoln Center — and Parker helped define the version of jazz Crouch harkens back to. To listeners of today's edgy jazz, Parker's lightning-fast takes on standards, show tunes and original compositions could sound basic. Crouch, a heavy believer in the virtues of swing, melody and virtuosity, understands why they're not, and he's used to explaining himself to a wide general readership.

Kansas City Lightning — part one of a proposed two-volume biography of Parker — feels like a labor of love, strong on passion. The chapters on Parker's early life move somewhat slowly. Part of Crouch's ambition is to tell the story of black America in the first half of the 20th century through Parker's story, and sometimes sprawling generalizations overwhelm the action, as when Crouch offers mouthfuls like this: And the Wild West in which he grew up was shaped by the same three sources that constituted his genetic line.

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Mixing his critical chops with his passion for Parker, he crafts lush scenes and crackling music writing. Essays on Authenticity and Considering Genius: Crouch exhaustively details Parker's childhood and adolescence in mob-run Kansas City, Mo. Parker was a bit lazy and spoiled, but a good-natured boy, one who grew up pampered by his adoring mother. As a teenager he fatefully fell in love with and married his neighbor, Rebecca Ruffin. He was eager and excitable, though unfocused — until he found his horn.

Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker by Stanley Crouch

After a few humbling experiences, including being laughed off the stage at a late-night jam session, Parker started "woodshedding," practicing to the exclusion of almost all else. Crouch quotes him claiming that he would "put in at least from eleven to fifteen hours a day. Most fun is watching Parker go from stumbling wannabe to a suddenly dead-serious genius-to-be. This biography is more a work of modern art than a documentary.

See a Problem?

Like most modern art, at first glance many of us will say, "What is he trying to do here. So I guess it is fitting that his biography reads the same way. It is not that Stanley Crouch does not know how to write - this is far from his first book on Jazz, or African American History, or many other subjects.

Therefore, I must assume he writes this way - flowery excess language, wide forays from the subject into related subjects, then return to the story line, like the jazz player, who leaves the melody to return later after many embellished variations. To understand the storyline or "tune" of this biography, read and memorize Chapter One.

It culminates in a New York radio session with Jay McShann's band, recently arrived from Kansas City for a second try at the big time, this time with young Charley Parker - who had not yet shown up for the gig. As the band finished swinging some preliminary tunes and were ready to swing into Charley's now trademarked "Cherokee" everyone held their breath.

Kansas City Lightning

Charley was well into his second trip with the big H and prone to show or not show. As he finally walked in there was a collective sigh of relief as the band kicked into Cherokee and Charley proceeded to blow the roof off with high velocity rips through complex chord changes, the likes of which no one there or in radio land had ever heard before from a saxophone. This was the pinnacle to which the rest of the book climbed in a winding back and forth path - including grade school, high school band, domineering mother, childhood girlfriend whom he married, Kansas city in prohibition jazz club Prendergast days, Charlie's embarrassing rejections from his early tries to join KC jam sessions, his incredible determination to learn the sax, involving up to 15 hours a day practice.

In later years, his dedication to find his own sound, resulted in leaving his wife and baby to go to New York and continue his search. It was amazing to me to find that this supposed musical genius had so much trouble, and not just with drugs, as has been highly reported, but with his music, which he worked on constantly reminding us of what Edison said about inspiration and perspiration.

After winding through Parker's many disappointments, with numerous forays into such things as African and Native American history, history of the railroads, and, of course, history of jazz, the Author takes Parker riding the rails to New York where he finds a guitar player of kindred spirit Biddy Fleet and they spend much time practicing complex chord changes. As he comes to that pinnacle experience and the end of the Story, Crouch picks another note in the chord of the tune and says: There is nothing about Bird's further career, his hooking up with Dizzy and inventing Bebop, or his move to California, relapse into drugs and drinking, time spent in the Camarillo mental hospital, recovery, more recordings, then relapse and death.

For this part of Parker's life, another book or Wikipedia will be required. However, for this reader, who lived not too far from Kansas City when Bird was there but knew nothing about him then, the detailed description of what went on with the Kansas City Jazz scene in those days was very interesting. Crouch's writing style was often as hard to follow as Bird's music.

But if you like modern art and you like jazz, you probably will like this book. It is rare to find a biography of this magnitude. Crouch does an excellent job of putting the complexities and dynamics of Charlie Parker's life into focus. The book is 'arranged' the manner of a musical score.

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This story has been marked, shaped, redone, formed, kneaded and baked. It is thoroughly researched and carefully told.

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It has the 'page turner' quality often limited to best seller novels We get a glimpse at those who forged the paths which led to such a great individual's capacity for 'such' spiritual and mechanical alignment. This biography is written with dedicated integrity. See all 89 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway.

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